


What Brothers Are For

by Peppermint_Magician_Lynn



Category: Ever After High
Genre: Brotherly Bonding, Brothers, Childhood Memories, First Dates, Relationship Advice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-13
Updated: 2017-07-13
Packaged: 2018-12-01 11:35:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11485572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Peppermint_Magician_Lynn/pseuds/Peppermint_Magician_Lynn
Summary: Set between "Just Sweet" and "Date Night". Daring's first attempt at giving Dexter dating advice didn't work out, so the Charming prince tries a new tactic to help out his brother: a make over!





	What Brothers Are For

 

“Oh, Gort.”

Patting the shoulders of Marisa and Tawny on either side of him, Daring flashed the girls surrounding him a smile of appreciation, then returned to his little brother to see if his lesson had gotten through to him and inspired him to be more confident.

To his surprise, Dexter Charming actually looked even more depressed than when he’d first come to the blond prince for advice. Frowning a little, Daring carefully disengaged himself from the group of ladies and stepped back towards his brother.

“What’s wrong, Dex?” he asked, perplexed that his talk hadn’t helped.

Dexter sighed, folding his arms and leaning against the lockers, his eyes to the floor. “Dare, I know you’re trying to help, but…it’s really not. I just wish you could not make this so much about… you.”

Daring eyebrows rose, a shocked look passing over his face as he processed his brother’s words. Had he been making this about him? He was just saying what any brother should, right? After all, Daring Charming had had tons of dates before and he’d found that when armed with just a smile, all of them went very smoothly. So why wouldn’t this advice work for his own brother if they were basically the same?

For a long moment, Daring stood there and really looked at Dexter’s body language. The slouched shoulders, the pout, the leaning posture. He seemed unsure of himself; like, he didn’t even know that he had everything he needed for a date already. He was a _Charming_!

Well, he’d just have to make him see it himself.

“All right, Little Bro,” Daring boomed, making the other boy look up to him, startled. “It’s time I do my duty as a Big Brother and make you see sense.”

“Huh?” Dexter gawked.

Without allowing him a moment to process, Daring clasped a hand on his brother’s forearm and, with a dashing bid of farewells to his admirers, whisked his fellow Charming down the hall and out the front doors, not letting his protests slow them down.

 

“Ah, here we are,” Daring proclaimed as he pulled his brother to a stop in front of a large store in Book End. Dexter looked up at the wooden sign and read the words “Brave Little Tailor Shop”. “This is just the place to get you ready for your big date. Hopper and I like to do our shopping here and their merchandize is both EAH provided _and_ Charming family approved.”

“What?” the boy exclaimed. “Daring, I don’t even know if I’ll make it _to_ this date, let alone what I’ll wear.”

“Trust me,” Daring told him, a confident grin in place. “Once you see yourself in that mirror, you’ll know all you need to about how this date will go.”

“But…but…” His attempts at protest were useless as within seconds, Dexter stood inside of the larger-than-suspected shop, teaming with employees, the majority of which were females.

“Greetings, everyone,” Daring’s voice called out and when they turned to see who it was entering their place of business, there were immediate squeals of delight all around.

“Prince Daring,” they called out, rushing forward to greet him and seemed completely oblivious to the other person with him. “How can we help you? Did you come to find some new clothes? _I_ ’ll gladly make you anything you need.”

“My dear ladies, I’m not here for myself today,” he informed them, draping an arm around Dexter’s shoulders. “My brother here has a big date tonight and I thought no place in town would be better at helping him get ready for it than right here. You are, indeed, the best of the business.”

“Of course,” one of them, a classmate from their year who went by Anabelle, nodded her head to the other young man. “We’re happy to help. What kind of clothes were you looking for?”

“Um…” Dexter stuttered, not sure how to answer this question. But it was Daring who filled in for him.

“It is a movie date to the new Multi-Hex theatre,” he repeated to them what Dexter had earlier said. “So I believe the proper attire would be something nice but casual,” he dragged out this last word smoothly to demonstrate his meaning. “Do you think you can whip something up?”

The young woman agreed to this, sending him a swoony look before taking Dexter by the hand and escorting him towards the other group of females and males, immediately giving out orders for what they should be grabbing to get ready for. Slightly overwhelmed, Dexter looked back towards Daring, but his brother was now talking on his MirrorPhone, giving some kind of directions.

 

“Hmm,” Anabelle hummed to herself, looking Dexter over from head to toe. In their first attempt to provide the boy clothes, they’d started with the same style that Daring would have wanted, bright and regal colors but with a more socially engaging flair to them. However, something about the prince in front of her just didn’t fit into this style. The boy himself was quite good-looking, she would admit; it was the clothes that weren’t working. Clearly, despite being brothers, these boys needed very different looks. “Perhaps we should tone down the ‘princely’ effect,” she told the other workers, pinching the embroidered fabric of the gold blazer between her fingers and comparing it to the boy’s dark glasses and hair. “I think he might be better suited for after-school casual rather than princely lounger.”

“Lounger-what?” Dexter repeated, looking himself over in the mirror and frankly, feeling very ridiculous in these clothes. Sweater vests may work for his brother, but Dexter preferred to wear full-length shirts even underneath a jacket.

“Possibly,” a male employee agreed, “but what about the colors? I wanted to use something to match his eyes, but they all just make him blotchy. I can’t find anything to really come together.”

The group pondered over this, trading ideas between themselves, but nothing they could really agree about. Dexter made an attempt to give his two cents. “Uh, can _I_ make a suggestion?” They looked at him with a hint of surprise, as if he was a mannequin that had suddenly began to speak. “I, um, I like to wear kind of dark colors. Like black and dark blue, and…grey.”

The stylists at first balked at his idea. Who had ever heard of a regal prince, much less one from the prestigious Charming Family, in such undertone colors? Then someone suggested the comment that, since he knew him best, maybe Daring should pick out something for his brother to wear.

It was Dexter’s turn to balk. Not that he didn’t trust Daring or anything, but he could just imagine his brother choosing the exact same clothes he himself was wearing now; after all, he’d said just an hour ago that “being him” was the best way to go. Why wouldn’t anyone just let him be Dexter?

Rising from his comfortable chair off to the side, Daring took up their invitation and walked over to the many clothing racks nearby, searching for something in their regular options. But after a moment, he shook his head. “No,” he declared frowning at the selection. “I’m afraid none of these are right. Do you have anything else to look at?”

“Um, well, we do have the common-men’s clothing sections,” Annabelle admitted nervously, “but with Dexter being a Charming and everything, we thought that…”

“May I see this section, please?” Daring asked politely, flashing a smile for good measure. Without further resistance, he was shown toward the back of the store and this time, let out a joyous exclamation at what among it he found. “Yes! These are perfect!”

Dexter looked up as his brother approached him, his arms full of several pieces of clothes which, he noticed, where in very dark shades of colors, blacks, blues, and even gray. Had he actually been listening to what he said?

“Give these a try, Little Brother,” Daring declared, tossing pile into Dexter’s arms. “I think you’ll find them much more befitting of you.”

Dexter cocked an eyebrow but, figuring he was already in this mess pretty deep, went into the changing room. And when he took a look at what he was present with, he was…impressed.

A few minutes later, when Dexter emerged from the dressing room, he was greeted with stares from the employees around him. Feeling self-conscious at their looks, he turned to look at Daring who, upon seeing his brother, grinned broadly with pride. Self-pride, if he knew the difference of his brother’s grins by now.

Choosing to ignore them for now, Dexter hesitantly made his way to the mirror to see what he looked like and again, he was awe-struck with what he saw.

Daring had given him an outfit that greatly resembled his regular school attires, but it a different set of colors. He wore a light-gray plain hoodie beneath a black and blue blazer jacket. His pants were dark blue plaid shorts with long socks and, being offered a box by one of the workers, he was given a pair of white and blue converse shoes to replace his high-tops.

“So, what do you think?” Daring asked, unable to resist admiring his own reflection as he looked over Dexter’s shoulder.

He looked pretty average but somehow, it seemed to work for him. It was the same kind of styles he wore in his everyday clothes, but rearranged to suite the occasion. Still, there was something about it that just seemed, unfinished. “I like it,” the boy admitted. “But, don’t you think it’s a little plain?”

Daring rubbed his chin in thought, then snapped his fingers in understanding. “I know!” He leaned over to murmur something to Annabelle and, with a nod, she rushed over to one of her drawers and pulled out two sheets of parchment paper. Rushing back to the princes, she draped Dexter’s long-discarded black hoodie across on of the tables and seemed to use it as a guide while she began furiously scribbling out a design one of the papers. Then she started on the other, though she didn’t look at anything while she worked. Once she was finished, she revealed her sketches as two different insignias. One was the golden C of the Charming Family, though used in the design of Dexter’s personalized crest, and the other, a version of the Ever After High school logo, drawn from memory.

“I think we should put the Charming crest here,” Daring said, taping a finger against his brother’s chest, then moving it to one side of his blazer, “and then the school logo can go here. Miniaturized, of course.”

Anabelle nodded and approaching Dexter, asked, “Could you move aside your lapels, please?”

Dexter did as instructed and watched as the girl placed the parchment backwards against his grey hoodie. She held it there for a moment and, after a flashing of gold light, pulled it off. On the front of his shirt was now the Charming crest, showing the right way, just like on his usual black hoodie.

With that done, the girl then asked him to move one side of his jacket over as well and placed a similar branding over his right chest, though this one was the official Ever After High logo.

“There you go,” Daring proclaimed, turning his brother back towards the mirror. “Does that say _Prince Charming or_ what?”

Any other time, Dexter might have answered him with an “or what” as he very rarely felt like the Prince Charming his family expected him to be. However, looking at himself now, he couldn’t help but think that just maybe...maybe he really had it in him to be charming, after all.

“I think…I think I might actually be able to do this,” Dexter said, feeling giddy at the thought of actually going through with it. Actually going out on a date with Raven Queen.

“Of course you can do this,” Daring told him confidently. But then frowned as he looked at his brother once more. Dexter looked over in shock when he felt Daring removing his crown from his head, setting it aside on the side table, then was even more surprised when the blond prince took up a golden comb offered to him by an attendant and began running it through his brother’s dark hair, straightening it out of its usual ruffled appearance.

This moment felt…familiar. He could have sworn something like this had happened before, but he couldn’t quite…

Then he remembered.

It was a time back when they were children. Dexter had come down with a cold and was restrained to his bed. Typically, when one of the royal children was ill, the Queen would have them stay in the royal nurse’s office, but she was too busy with other kingdom matters to oversee this so she let her youngest son remain locked in his own bedroom so long as no visitors came to intrude upon him. Darling had been forbidden to enter the room, as had Daring, and even their mother only visited him sparingly because of how contagious he was. As the ruler of a kingdom, calling in sick was not something she could afford.

The only person who came in regularly was the castle physician plus his father, Dr. King Charming, who oversaw the process to be sure Dexter was recovering in due time. But though this was the most of his father’s undivided attention Dexter could ever remember having, the man only came in every so many hours for the check of the boy’s vital sign and the doctor’s repeated orders to get more rest after a dose of medicine. Then the king was back out, tending to their kingdom.

With only these few visits and no real interactions with anyone, Dexter had been in a very miserable mood, feeling like no one on the world wanted anything to do with him, even his twin sister. Would he always be so alone?

At that very moment, the door to his room was pushed open and in the dark caused by the closed curtains, Dexter wasn’t too sure who it was coming in. But he noticed, as the door closed again, that the silhouette was much too short to be his father’s. So who…?

“Hi, Dex,” Dexter’s eyebrows shot up in surprise at the sound of that voice. His bed curtains, partially opened to get some air, were swiftly pushed aside and he was greeted with the smiling face of his brother, Daring. “How are you doing?”

“Dare?” the dark-haired prince gawked, not having expected this visit. Not that he and his brother didn’t get along or anything, but he knew both of his siblings weren’t allowed anywhere near his room. “What are you doing here?”

“Hey, I asked _you_ a question first,” the boy joked, grinning broadly. Even at that age, the elder prince loved to smile and laugh, though he wouldn’t start clinging to his hand mirror until years later. At the time, he just smiled because he liked to, not because it looked handsome.

“Uh, I’m okay, I guess,” Dexter stuttered out, then gave a cough. “Not better, but okay.”

“Oh, that’s good,” the blond–haired prince said, then added, “because you look like a mess.”

“Huh?” Dexter looked at him in surprise, but the boy had already wandered off to another part of the room saying, “Really, Dexterous, when was the last time you looked in a mirror? You’re a real mess.”

“Well, what do you expect? I’ve been in bed all day. And it’s not like anyone else is going to see me, so who cares?”

“You should care,” Daring answered, coming back to the bed. In his small hands he held a comb and a wooden hand mirror. “You’re a prince, Brother. Even when people aren’t looking. That’s what Dad always says. So you should at least brush your hair.”

Dexter made no move to accept these items, pouting at the other male, then towards his hands, the only part of him overtop his blankets. Daring mimed this pout right back at him. “Fine then,” the blond declared, but, rather than withdraw, he hopped himself right on top of Dexter’s bedcovers, sitting beside the boy. “I’ll just fix it myself.”

“Daring, you can’t get that close,” Dexter protested, then aimed his following coughs towards the other side of his bed. “You’re going to catch my cold.”

“No, I’m not,” Daring declared confidently while trying to angle his brother’s shoulder. They were almost identical in build at those early years, so he didn’t have the strength to move him so easily. “I’m like Dad. I never get sick so easily. It’s part of being a prince, you know.”

His comment, though unintentional, upset Dexter even more, like his brother had just implied that _he_ isn’t a prince since he’d caught this bug. Daring didn’t notice his brother’s suddenly sadder mood as he’d taken hold of the boy’s pillow and moved it to rest against his own small chest, forcing the other prince to lean against him while facing the opposite side of his bed.

With that settled, Daring shoved the mirror into the brunette’s hand then started running the comb through his messy hair. Luckily for Dexter, his hair was much like his mother’s and sister’s, in that no matter what kind of state it was in, it never had knots in it. And that was good, since his older brother wasn’t being very gentle with the comb, treating Dexter’s hair like he would his own which was thicker and a bit less easy to manage than Darling’s.

“Where _is_ Darling,” Dexter asked, now pondering why his sister hadn’t snuck her way into his room if his brother could manage it. Through the reflection of the mirror, he saw Daring smile.

“She’s upstairs getting scolded by Mother,” Daring replied, barley suppressing a laugh. “She was going to use a rope to climb down into your window, but Mom caught her before she could. She really needs to learn how to be more sneaky.”

“Then how did you get in here?”

“I made a distraction,” Daring answered, smoothing down one side of Dexter’s hair before working on the other. “I let Onyx out of his cage and pretended it was an accident. Dad went to go get him, so he won’t be back for a long time.”

Dexter gasped. “Daring, how could you do that? You know you shouldn’t play with the dragons!”

The blond had the decency to look guilty. “I know; I shouldn’t have made Dad do all that, but I really wanted to see you, Dex. I haven’t seen you since yesterday and I was worried about you.”

The bespectacled prince knew he should have told his brother it was _his own_ safety he should have been more worried about, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it. It felt so nice hearing his brother say something like that; that he was worried about Dexter. That he wanted to see him.

So, rather than say anything at all, he just let Daring keep working on his hair, using the mirror to watch the boy work. It was a nice feeling for someone else to comb his hair. Their mother used to do it for all three of them until Darling’s started to grow extra-long and thus, needed more personal attention. Dexter wasn’t very comfortable letting a servant do it like Daring was, but this was different. It was his own brother combing his hair, his brother who rarely did things for himself but seemed perfectly happy to do things for his siblings.

“All done,” Daring declared, pulling the comb away and beaming down at the prince in the mirror. “How do you like it?”

Dexter used the hand mirror to examine himself. He looked…good. True, he was just the same old Dexter he was every other day but now, seeing himself straightened up after so long feeling awful, he honestly thought that he looked and felt much better.

“Thanks, Dare,” Dexter said, beaming back at his brother. “It’s great.”

“Of course it is,” Daring replied, smiling in self-pride. “I make sure that everything I do is great. I’m Prince Charming, after all.”

Dexter sighed at his brother’s words, but rather than hanging on them, he turned back to his own reflection, unable to keep from smiling at himself.

Daring carefully readjusted the pillow back to leaning against the headboard then got down from the bed, smoothing the sheets to show no sign that he had been there. “I have to go, now,” he said sadly. “Dad will be looking for me soon and Mom will get upset if she knew I was in here.”

“Oh,” Dexter sighed, feeling sad that he’d be left here all alone again.

Daring saw his face, then quickly added, “I’ll come back in later tonight after dinner. Then I can bring you some cookies, too. The cook made the kind that you like.”

Dexter’s entire face lit up at this news and he nodded his head as excitedly as he could manage despite his weakened state. “Yeah. Thanks, Dare!”

The older prince smiled. “Hey, that’s what brothers are for.” With a last wave and a grin, Daring finally left Dexter’s room, leaving his brother still holding the hand mirror.

Dexter looked back at his own reflection and found, after removing his glasses for just a moment, that he looked quite a bit like Daring but still, very different. But that was fine. He didn’t need to look like his brother. He was a prince just the same, so that was good enough.

There was a great temptation to just sit there looking at himself, not having much else to do, but Dexter instead sat the mirror on his bedside table beside the comb and put his glasses there as well. Taking a nap was a better choice, anyway. If he looked at himself any longer, he was afraid he might start making it a habit. That couldn’t possibly be a good thing for his development.

One thing was for sure, though. He definitely had the best brother he could ask for.

 

“And there we go.” Dexter pulled himself out of his memories to see Daring set down a can of his signature brand of hairspray (it figured they sold it in this shop) and replacing the golden crown. “And a job well done, if I do say so myself.”

Looking himself over, Dexter felt just like in that time so long ago, that the improvement in his appearance was improving something in him emotionally. He’d often wondered in the past if a Charming’s physical appearance had a direct relationship with their emotions. Daring’s seemed to and so did his dad’s; and, though she might not admit it, he wasn’t lost to the fact that even his sister might spend a little time making sure her hair was in pristine order, even after she’d just snuck out to get in some secret hero practice.

He’s often told himself that appearances mattered very little to him personally, but Dexter could not deny that seeing himself now, dressed up and with his hair smooth and neat, held by a light coating of hairspray to control his stubborn cowlick, he did feel like a charming prince. Maybe even charming enough to survive this date with the beautiful Raven Queen.

Was that why Daring had brought him here?

“Oh, and one more thing,” Daring said, running over to the other side of the room. Dexter watched as he greeted a Delivery Goose who seemed to have just arrived with something. Daring quickly signed for the delivery and once the goose left, he turned back towards Dexter, his package in hand.

He was holding a large bouquet of beautiful flowers, but unlike the usual flowers he had on hand to pass out around school, this bunch was made up of not just roses, but many types of flowers, all in various shades of purples and blues. They were gorgeous.

“Here you are,” Daring said, holding the bouquet towards the stunned prince. “Midnight Blossoms. Special ordered from a very reliable source. Sure to impress even a sorceress.”

“I…I don’t know what to say,” he gasped out, accepting the bouquet he was to present to Raven, but still looking at him in confusion. “I don’t know what to do when we get there.”

“Like I told you before, it doesn’t matter if you know or not,” Daring told him, patting his shoulder. “The important thing is your charming smile.”

“Daring, I can’t make girls swoon the way that you can with just a smile. And even if I could, I don’t think I would want Raven to. At least not on a first date.”

“I’m sorry?” Daring asked, looking away from his reflection in the large mirror to face his brother; now he was the one who looked confused. “Who said anything about making her swoon? I just said you need to be sure to smile. That’s all.”

“But...isn’t that why you _want_ me to smile?”

“Not really,” he answered, looking at the boy full in the face. “I already know your smile isn’t as enchanting my own and that’s fine. It’s just that if you smile, then you look like you’re having fun which will make her feel better. And when she feels better, you will, too. You just have to make sure you look and feel confident in yourself. That’s how you build confidence during a date.”

Oh.

The bespectacled prince was quiet for moment, looking down at both his date clothes and the bouquet in his arms. His brother really did want the best for him, didn’t he? He glanced at the boy who was now shamelessly grinning and posing in the mirror himself, preening as if it was he who was getting ready for a night out. (Technically, he was since he was going to the movies with Apple.) But, rather than roll his eyes in resignation, Dexter smiled. His brother was an enigma, no doubt about that, but he was still, now and forever after, his best friend.

“Thanks, Daring,” he said gratefully. “For everything.”

The not-so-perfect prince glanced over to his sibling and, with a gentle smile, replied, “That’s what brothers are for.”


End file.
